My first attempt at a Mentalist story. The first one I posted at least. I'm pretty much satisfied with how it turned out, but I hope you readers will like it too.

It's pretty much in the middle of hurt/comfort, romance, friendship and maybe something else too.

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How to survive

How did I end up in this position? How did I manage to come out of this alive?

I honestly have no idea.

I was so sure my life had ended seven years ago, and that everything else, any remaining time I could live for, was just that, time. Time during which I got to survive, rather than live, waiting for my revenge. I never, in seven years, had even the slightest desire to live after that. My future, my whole life, was bent to find him, and that moment was supposed to be the end for the both of us. The end of the world as I knew it.

The possibilities were not exactly endless. If I managed to kill him and get my revenge I ended up in jail for the rest of my life (I know that, as charming as I can be, being in a state prison would not be living, but merely surviving as an empty shell, at least if I manage not to piss off someone enough to kill me). The other possibility was being killed by Red John while trying to catch him. If I was lucky maybe killing him too in the process. I sincerely didn't know which one I'd have liked best.

Is it better to die trying to reach your goal in life or survive without really living?

I remember talking to Lisbon for the first time about my purpose of torturing him…

I was almost disappointed seeing her so… hurt while I pictured the scene. It was clear she didn't want me in jail for the rest of my life just as much as she didn't want me to be killed. Back then these emotions weren't welcomed at all. It didn't seem fair to me. A normal person usually appreciates that level of caring, but at the moment I just felt deceived. I never meant for this to happen. I never tried or wanted to make friends. I never wanted anyone to be hurt because of me ever again. At least not anyone that didn't deserve a little suffering, like a cheating husband or a scheming bastard. And Lisbon definitely doesn't fall in any of these categories. She bore enough suffering as it is, she doesn't deserve more of it. Nor does the rest of the team.

When I joined the CBI all I wanted was access to the Red John file. Fooling around while helping them with the cases was just an added bonus. Playing the jester was the safest way (and the only one I knew) to be among others without giving out too much of myself. Nobody thinks twice about what's crossing my mind if I distract them with my mind reading tricks.

But then I started to sincerely like the members of the team. Slowly they've grown on me.

Unlike me, they are good people, they want to bring justice to the world, and I respect that, I really do.

I was amused the first time I noticed they were willing to go along with my plans. I mean, generally they are serious cops, used to following rules, and yet Cho agreed to find a house on sale, to broke in and to camp in somebody's living room, and all just throughout one case. Grace went along with my plan when she had to pose as my fiancée, even if she didn't like it. The whole team helped me with the Renfrew case, even if their job would be at stake, the job they love so much.

So I came to appreciate all of them. Rigsby is brave and strong, has a great sense of duty and likes having rules to follow, but inside he's a big kid, and his desires are easy: a woman to love, food, maybe a match of some sport. Van Pelt challenges me with her questions about my beliefs, she's loyal and caring, and more ambitious than she lets on. Cho is hard to read, even for me, but he's tough and he's been a lot more loyal to me than I ever deserved.

And then there's Lisbon…

Lisbon is different. She offered me something I had not had in a long time. Not just friendship, but something else I don't quite know how to name. She offered some kind of partnership. Officially she's the boss and I'm 'just a consultant', and I know sometimes dealing with me she must feel like a kindergarten teacher, but she bears it well. I could never wish for a better partner for my… well, for whatever it is I do. And she's always been able to see besides my façade. She wasn't fooled by my antics. It's not that she wasn't amused, but she's always known there was something else behind. She's the only one that managed to reach besides my walls, to find the real me, even if just a little bit of it. And maybe she succeeded because she didn't even try. She's not one to ask out loud, like Grace, so when she does I know it's really important to her. Still, most of the time her eyes tell me more than words ever could.

I don't know how this all started. I don't know if I did a mistake letting her see too much of myself, almost against my will, or if I willingly gave her something of me because I needed someone.

It's not easy to go through life completely alone, gnawed away by guilt. Revenge is a poison, I've always known that, but it's easy to let you being poisoned if you've got nothing else to live for, nothing to lose.

That was what I wanted, what I went for these last years. Willingly. Not looking back.

But maybe after a while I couldn't stand being alone all the time anymore. Maybe I had the desire to leave something of me behind by telling her what I wanted or expected from my future. Maybe I wanted her to know my reasons.

Or maybe subconsciously I wanted her to give up on me, to make things easier for the both of us.

Either way, it was always her I wanted to connect to. It's always been just her.

Why her of all people?

Well, who else?

Really, I met lots of people in my life, but she's the only one that accepted my past and everything else about me without so much as a blink. She's the only one I knew I could trust not to freak out. And I love her for that. I mean, not in a head-over-heels-in-love kind of way, but I still love her. She's the closest I have to a friend. Maybe even the closest I've ever had in my life. Sad, isn't it? She was the closest person I had and I was almost sure she'd be the one arresting me for murder.

And now everything is changed.

The moment I've been waiting for years belongs to the past and I am still here, still free, still breathing.

I never thought I'd be asking myself again what should I do with my future.

THE moment came three days ago.

One moment we were working in the bullpen as usual, and the next we had a fresh lead on Red John. We went there on a rush and somehow this time we found him. It was a lucky coincidence, really. We still missed a lot of pieces of the puzzle, he was still ahead of us, but this time someone he trusted had betrayed him before he could realize it. It must have been someone really close to him, because Red John usually knows very well how to use his tools.

I figured the building he was in some time before the others and for a second I didn't know what to do. I could tell Lisbon straight away, or I could go by myself. Something inside me really wanted to tell her, and that should have made me question myself. Instead I decided I didn't want to drive the others into my mess. But I still left her something, a clue, a trail to follow, and obviously she picked up on it. We've spent so much time together that I guess she can understand me, as complicated as my line of thinking can be.

So I went there and I surprised him. My heart was beating so fast I could hardly hear anything else. Red John was there, we were in the same building, then I entered in the same room, and I had a gun stashed in my jacket (a gun I'd stolen from Rigsby).

All these years I've been so sure I could do it, I was sure I was going to do it, nothing could have stopped me… but when I was there, when I saw him, with what I could imagine was his family… I just couldn't.

He knew who I was, of course, I knew it was dangerous to stay there in front of him, not doing anything. He could have hit me then, but he didn't. He pretended to believe to the excuse I had used to get inside. Probably he didn't want his family to know what he really was, what he was capable of.

So I stayed there, with him, for twenty minutes, the longest twenty minutes of my life.

I had the opportunity, I had motive, I had a weapon.

And still, I stood there, like an idiot, waiting God knows what.

Maybe I did know what.

Maybe I knew what I was waiting for. I was waiting for that weight to be lifted from my shoulders, I was waiting for my chest to be freed from my poison. Poetic, isn't it?

Anyway that's exactly what happened.

The team came –she came- with a SWAT team as well, they were all around the building. He got scared and tried to take a run as soon as confusion took over, before someone could arrest him. And still I did nothing. He used me as a human shield, and there was nothing I could do. For a second I thought that was it, that was how it was going to end, and I wasn't even disappointed. Actually I was relieved not to see her hurt face anymore, like the time I told her I wanted to torture him. Maybe my death would be hurting her, all of them, less than me betraying their belief in justice.

But then again, something happened, somehow we were outside and someone pushed me, a shot was fired and we were both on the ground. Only I was alive and he was dead.

I didn't see who fired the shot. I know it wasn't her, because she was on the ground beside me, she'd been the one pushing me on the ground, to avoid being shot I suppose.

I didn't see who did it, and I didn't ask. It didn't matter anymore. It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that he's dead, he can't kill anymore, he can't hurt anyone else, he can't destroy any more families.

But still the question stands. What do I do now?

That evening I came home, into this empty shell of a house, and sat upstairs, in that room, watching the red smiley face that couldn't scare me any longer. I was challenging him again, only this time everything was up to me. He didn't have a say anymore.

I spent all night there, staring at the wall, then I took one can of white paint I still had in the garage and erased that monstrosity. No reason to keep it there anymore. No reason to remember why I wanted revenge.

I'd had some kind of revenge and I was still feeling hollow. And after a lot of thinking I'm pretty much convinced that killing him would have left me even more hollow. Or maybe worse. Hollow and even more guilty.

I haven't seen anyone of the team since then yet. Apart from Lisbon. I didn't want to meet them, to talk to any of them, to know what they were thinking about me. Frankly I have no idea what I think about me either.

But Lisbon came in yesterday. And what she said had me thinking. A lot.

I can still hear her voice in my head.

"You did what you had to do Jane. He's dead, and that's all that matters. He can't hurt anyone anymore, and that is what should matter."

"But I let her down. I let them down. I should have… I could… I had the opportunity…"

"No! You shouldn't have because it was illegal and it wasn't gonna change anything. You couldn't because it's not who you are. You are a lot of things, but not a cold blooded killer. When you told me what you wanted to do I was angry at you, and sad, and scared. You almost got me to believe you were going to do it, maybe because you really believed it yourself. But months later, when you shot Hardy because of me, when you sacrificed your only link to Red John to save my life, I knew. I saw your face that day, when you dropped the rifle, and it was the face of someone who didn't want to do it ever again. You might have been thinking you were able to, but you were not. You are not like that. You are nothing like him. And maybe that's why I got a little soft on you later on. Not because you had saved my life, but because I was relieved, because I knew that, when the time came, you'd make the right choice. You didn't realize that then, but I did."

She paused for a second, but I was too stunned by her words to interrupt.

"As for letting them down, it's just plain ridiculous. You really think your family would want to see you being killed by the same man that murdered them? Or spend the rest of your life in jail? If they ever loved you, and I'm sure they did, they want you to live your life, now that you still have one."

Maybe I could have started to live sooner, had I known what she was saying now… "If you were so sure why didn't you tell me?"

"You weren't ready to believe it. You needed the facts to prove you wrong."

At the time it felt like being hit in the stomach by a baseball bat.

She knew.

She knew something about myself that I didn't know. And as much as I wanted her to be bluffing, I could read her well enough to know that she wasn't. She trusted me to do the right thing when I was sure that, given the chance, I would have done the exact opposite. That's serious trust, right? She saw signs about myself that I missed.

I guess it's true that a doctor can't heal himself. I can read the others, know their deepest secrets, but I can't read myself. And I wasn't ready to admit it until now. Just now that everything is over I can finally understand.

Yesterday she also told me that the others are worried about me and they are waiting for me at the HQ. She even said that my couch misses me (yes, Lisbon actually made a joke!). And that she knows that I'll do the right thing again, as soon as I'm okay. She believes I'll be back at work come Monday, and maybe I should trust her. She was right about my revenge, why shouldn't she be now? And it's not like I have something else to do…

So here I am, about to decide what to do with the rest of my life. Like a kid barely out of high school. Just about twenty years older.

What kind of person can I be without my revenge and guilt and anger? What's left of me?

Frankly I don't know. Maybe she can help me figuring that out…

They say that for an addict asking for help is the first step to recover. Maybe I'm an addict. I was addicted to revenge and guilt. And I need help to let go of them. So I'll ask for help.

I'm one lucky bastard after all… I did whatever I could to keep the others at arm's length, and yet I have friends waiting for me, friends who'd be happy to see me happy. And someone who isn't just a friend either. I don't know if we will ever be anything more than what we are now, but she's the only one I can open myself up to, the only one I trust with my feelings.

We are two broken souls, so maybe sticking together we can make a whole.

Now, finally, I can imaging a future.

Of course, I have to start fresh, but I know I want to start from the place and from the people that kept me alive (and mentally stable… more or less) these last years. I owe them that much.

Wow… a few hours ago I was terrified, and now I'm almost giddy at the prospect of a new life. Apparently not very different from my old one, but I'll be different. I want to be real. I want the others to know the real me. I want to care about my colleagues and show them as much. And I can't wait to show Lisbon how grateful I am for what she's done for me.

With just a few words she gave me my life back. Not really my life as it was (even mighty Lisbon cannot turn back time), but a life nonetheless.

She knows me.

The thought thrills me.

Isn't it wonderful that someone else can say when you're upset and knows exactly how to make you feel better?

I had given up on that feeling years ago… Probably when my father didn't see (or care) how badly I wanted to stop doing what we did for a living.

I am a survivor.

I had another chance, and I intend on enjoying it as much as I can.

So… work on Monday it is.

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I already started some kind of sequel. It's still unfinished, but if you're interested I can try to finish and post it.